Help Me
by TheDarkMarkIsOnYourLeftArm
Summary: Draco is falling down a black hole of despair with the guilt and memories of the war. Although looking completely fine, inside Hermione too is dying with the constant reminders of what happened in the previous year. Can the two work together and help each other to recover? or are they going to be broken people forever...
1. Chapter 1

**Hello there!  
Right, so welcome to my fanfiction :D although this is the first one that I've written on this account, I actually do have another account that I will try not to neglect so bear with me if I don't update for a while!**

**Yeah this story may be kind of depressing for a bit, but hopefully it should cheer up soon!**

**This first chapter is just about Draco, but trust me, I will have a look at Hermione too very shortly!**

**Chapter 1**

Draco Malfoy was sitting on a chair in the corner of an empty room. The only other objects in the room were a double bed with the covers messed up although somebody had just got up; an enormous wardrobe that took up most of the wall and a large empty trunk that lay wide open in the middle of the floor. Draco surveyed the trunk with narrowed eyes, thinking of the memories that accompanied it.

"_Have you packed everything?" Lucius – his father – stood over a young Draco who was sitting proudly on top of the new trunk._

"_Yes" he Draco replied with a definite nod._

"_And if you have any problems, then don't hesitate to owl us" his mother said from where she was perched on the edge of his bed, dabbing at her eyes with a large and overly decorative hanky._

"_Yes" Lucius nodded in agreement "especially any problems with the other children, and remember to do the family name proud in all respects"_

Draco felt a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He had been so happy then, so carefree; his biggest worry was not being put in Slytherin and angering his father. Yet now the mere memory of that day made him feel physically sick.

He stood up suddenly and walked over to the wardrobe, each footstep echoing through the silent and empty house. The doors of the wardrobe were thrown open, and he peered into the heartless tidiness of the right hand side section. Countless sets of robes were hung up from the pole that ran along the middle centre of it, with a collection of polished shoes lined up along the floor. Draco reached out and took the robes from the end. He held them up against him to check that they were the right size before throwing them onto his bed and returning to the wardrobe.

Half and hour later, Draco had placed all the clothing needed for a year at Hogwarts on the bed. He closed one side of the wardrobe and turned his attention to the other. There was a warmer feel to this side, a broomstick placed lovingly at the side, with his prized Quiddich robes hanging up beside it. Draco picked up the robes and looked at them. All throughout his time at Hogwarts, his broom had been his one escape whenever he had been angry or stressed, yet since the war he hadn't been able to bring himself to even look at it, yet alone ride it. He stared at the silver and green robes for a while more, before turning round and placing both the robes and the broom on his bed.

Draco picked up the letter that was lying on his pillow, and read through it once again.

_Dear Mr Malfoy,_

_I am writing to offer you a place Hogwarts for those who wish to redo their previous year due to the disruptions that we faced then. I await you owl by latest 17__th__ August with your decision on returning._

_The train will leave at 11 o'clock am on the 1__st__ September from platform 9¾. I hope to see you there._

_Professor McGonagall_

He had to decide by the 17th August whether or not he was going to return there. A quick peek at his watch told him that the date was now 16th August. Draco sighed, what was he going to do? Either he could stay here and mope around the oversized and empty house with just the house elves to talk to (and even they didn't really want to see him), or return to the place that held so many memories for him – both good and bad. He wished that he could talk to his mother about this, but he knew immediately that that wasn't an option. Since the end of the war his mother had been different. She seemed to walk round the house in a sleep like state, rarely uttering a word. Draco knew that she was avoiding him, and he knew why too. Every time she saw her son, she was immediately reminded of her ex-husband and everything that she had been trying so hard to forget. She doesn't know what she is meant to believe any more. Everything has changed so much and suddenly everything she grew up believing is all lies.

Draco hated Lucius more than anything in the world now. He hated what he had done to his family, how he left the name disgraced and the house now unkempt and uncared for. What his mother had become, barely a ghost of who she had been before with no idea what to do with herself or even what to think anymore. And most of all Draco hated _why_ he had done all of that. It was all just the result of greed and selfishness, the idea of power driving him crazy with helpless desire.

Draco stepped through his bedroom door, into a cold and badly lit corridor. He could hear a small shuffling noise from the room opposite him, and he pushed the door open gently to investigate. A small house elf was struggling to move a pile of books from the floor to their rightful place on the shelf. Draco watched the elf struggle for several minutes before he spoke without thinking.

"Do you need some help?"

He froze the moment the words left his lips. The elf stopped and the books crashed to the ground as he stared at Draco in amazement.

"I…I mean…you looked like you were struggling and I just…thought that I could give you a hand?" Draco stuttered.

The elf gulped and started collecting the books up off the ground – but not taking his eyes off Draco.

"Sir has never talked to Tombo like that before" the elf – apparently named Tombo – said finally.

"No"

"But if sir is offering, then Tombo would like some help moving these books, there are too heavy for him sir" Tombo continued nervously, bracing himself for the shouting and occasional beating that he had received so often in the past.

"I…of course" Draco said, stepping forward and taking the books from him. "Where shall I put them?"

The elf could do nothing put nod weakly and let Draco take the books from him. He stretched out a shaking arm and pointed to a space on the nearest shelf. Draco walked wordlessly to where he was pointing, and offloaded the books there.

"Is there…is there anything else you need help with?"

"No sir, but thank you for your help, Tombo could not have carried them alone" the elf bowed to him before quickly scuttling out of the room and leaving Draco alone again.

What was that all about? Draco thought to himself. Had he really just walked in here, offered 'Tombo' help with carrying the books and then proceeded to take them from him and place them on the shelf. Draco couldn't remember the last time (if ever) that he had actually offered to _help _someone. In fact, he couldn't even remember the last time that he had talked to someone besides himself. With that thought in mind, he walked with purpose out of the dusty room and straight down to the owlery. He had made up his mind.

Draco Malfoy was going back to Hogwarts.

**Please review and then I will be persuaded to update soon and get some Dramione action going!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for the follows and favourites! Made my day! :D**

**Chapter 2**

Hermione Granger wandered absentmindedly along the aisle, searching along the rows of food colourings and cake decorations for a small bottle of vanilla essence. She finally reached the label reading 'Vanilla extract' and sighed as she realised that the space above the label was completely clear.

Great. Just her luck.

Feeling slightly dejected, Hermione turned round and walked back up the aisle to the checkout area. The man who served her was smiling continuously, and kept giving trying to start conversations with her such as 'Weathers looking nice today, isn't it?'. Although Hermione smiled and nodded at him, she wasn't really paying attention. All she could think about was when she snuck into the supermarket under Harry's cloak, surreptitiously trying to take food from aisles whilst they were clear and then leaving a small deposit of change in one of the empty checkouts. After paying, she walked slowly back to her parents house, pausing at the park to tear the end of the baguette off and feed it to ducks in the pond.

"Is that you darling?" Jean Granger's voice rang through from the sitting room as she heard the front door slam shut.

"No mother, I'm just a random stranger who wandered in" Hermione shouted back whilst rolling her eyes.

"Did you get everything then?" Jean asked her, completely ignoring her previous comment.

"Well all except for the vanilla essence, they seemed to be out of stock" Hermione said, placing several shopping bags on the table and starting to unpack them.

"Oh, how much do we have left?"

Hermione opened a tidy cupboard and picked up a small brown bottle, suppressing the memories that tried to force their way into her mind as she held the bottle that so resembled that of the 'Essence of Dittany' bottle they used many a time in the previous year.

She failed.

The memories were back. She remembered the panic of trying to heal Ron when he was splinched, panic so real and so vivid it was almost like she was back in the forest, knelt over Ron as she attempted to pull the stopper out with shaking hands. The feeling that at any minute someone was going to appear and capture them, and the constant sense of being in danger, no matter how lonely and empty a place was, she had never felt completely safe.

She still didn't.

Even the memories were enough to scare her, memories that seemed to find her through everything – even a small, harmless bottle of vanilla essence could suddenly have turned into a bottle of deadly poison for the amount of fear that it brought her. But she would fix it, she would return to Hogwarts and finish her education so that she could go out and find a job (not necessarily magical – often Hermione thought that she would be better suited for a muggle job, simply because she knew exactly how that world worked. Magic would never cease to amaze her with its limitless possibilities).

"Hermione! For the third time, how much vanilla essence do we have left?" The irritation in Jean's voice was clear. What was wrong with Hermione at the moment? Ever since they had got back from their holiday in Australia she'd been acting weirdly. So much of the time she would see Hermione frozen, deep in thought over some insignificant object. Three times this week Jean had caught her daughter sat in front of the radio, just staring at it and subconsciously tapping out rhythms with her fingernails. She wasn't sure why she was acting like this, but it was starting to worry Jean that her 'on the ball' and level headed daughter seemed to be constantly distracted by some invisible cause.

"Urm about a quarter of a bottle I think" Hermione finally shook herself out of her short reminiscence and back to the present.

"That should be enough then" Jean nodded firmly, picking up her newspaper off the coffee table and flicking through it. "Are you doing anything for the rest of the day?"

"I think I'll just double check that I've packed everything for tomorrow, and relax for a bit before I leave"

"Oh Hermione? Just a minute, I need to talk to you" Jean said without looking up from her paper "are you planning to come back at Christmas or Easter? Because your father and I were talking, and we decided that it would be a nice idea for us to go camping, you know, just as…"

Just the mention of camping reminded Hermione of the hunger for weeks on end, the mostly fruitless search for Horcruxes and once again, that constant feeling of danger.

"No" she said quickly "no I'm not coming back for Christmas or Easter, sorry"

Four hours later, Hermione had repacked her trunk several times and tidied up her room. She was now sat on her bed, absentmindedly stroking Crookshanks, her cat, and worrying about returning to Hogwarts. It had taken Hermione several weeks to make up her mind about it, and even now she was only seconds away from simply emptying out her trunk and staying at home. The main reason that she _had _decided to return there, was simply because she wanted closure on the war. She needed to prove to herself that it was over, that other people who had been deeply involved with it had managed to move on and therefore that she could do that too. The truth was, Hermione hadn't been able to move on from the war at all. She was still stuck in a constant swirl of memories and fear, going round and round her mind all the time, and her biggest worry was simply of drowning. Of never being able to escape the aftermath of the war, and of being stuck like this forever. And although the idea of returning to the place that had been the centre of destruction, where she had watched some of the people she held closest to her fall at the hands of a fellow human being was scaring her beyond distraction, the idea of staying like this and _never_ being able to move on scared her even more. To put it bluntly, it was fear that had made her decide to return to Hogwarts. Fear, forcing her straight into the path of more fear. She only hoped that it paid off…

**Please please please review! It would honestly mean so much to me!**


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